Warning: Immigration Can Seriously Damage Your Wealth

British and American workers believe that immigration reduces their wages and their wealth. Conversely, the political elite of both countries, who benefit from cheaper labour, are in favour of having immigrant workers.

When an immigrant steps off an aeroplane in London or New York, he arrives in
a country whose native inhabitants have accumulated capital and wealth over
generations and centuries. From the moment of arrival, he makes use of this
wealth – the airports, the roads, the water supplies. Later, he requires the
‘tools of production’, housing, health services, churches, colleges and cultural
institutions, etc.

British and American politicians and commentators have typically addressed
the income or GDP effects of immigration; and, in the case of Britain, all major
political parties regard these as favourable. They fail to mention that free
market economists contend that immigration has a depressing effect on native
wages.

The issue of the impact of immigration on existing wealth is rarely
mentioned, though. The essence of this is as follows – when an immigrant worker
arrives without capital and earns the same as a native worker, that means the
wealth of the country is being shared among more people, and therefore wealth
and capital per head are reduced.

To put it another way, how can an immigrant worker finance his initial stake
in society – the same amount of wealth that the native workers have been
building up over centuries?

This study draws two conclusions:

1. Capital is supplied for immigrants by depressing the wages of native
workers. (This is an issue that the elite ignores – or about which it is ‘in
denial’.)

2. Even though native wages are depressed, this process will not fully supply
an immigrant worker with his requisite share of wealth.

Natives lose out both ways:

· Their wages are reduced.· Their wealth per head is reduced.

The process of depressing the wages of native workers also raises the
question – is it socially and morally right to depress the earnings of native
workers in order to provide capital and wealth for immigrants?

***

I would like to thank Michael Mosbacher of the Social Affairs Unit for his
invitation to write this study and for his support during the writing. I would
also thank Clive Liddiard for his excellent editing and help in clarifying both
thought and language, as well as Gerald Frost, editor of Eurofacts, for
allowing me to put forward some initial conclusions in articles for the
magazine. Needless to say, they are not responsible for my conclusions, let
alone any errors or inaccuracies.

“The Social Affairs Unit is famous for driving its coach and horses through the liberal consensus scattering intellectual picket lines as it goes [and] for raising questions which strike most people most of the time as too dangerous or too difficult to think about.” (The Times)